Stand-your-ground laws are frequently criticized and called "shoot first" laws by critics, including the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. In Florida, the law has resulted in self-defense claims tripling. The law's critics argue that Florida's law makes it very difficult to prosecute cases against people who shoot others and then claim self-defense.

The shooter can argue that he felt threatened, and in most cases, the only witness who could have argued otherwise is the victim who was shot and killed. Many states have some form of Stand Your Ground law including, California. The Hate Crime Statistics Act defines hate crimes as acts in which individuate arevictimized because of their "race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity." This definition fate to convey a deeper sense of the severity of hate crimes or their impact on individual victims, their families and communities. As defined in California Penal Code section 422 55, hate crime means "a criminal act committed, in whole or in part, because of one or more of the following actual or perceived characteristics: (1) Disability. (2) Gender. (3) Nationality, (4) Race or ethnicity, (5) religion (6) Sexual orientation, (7) Association with a person or group with one or more of these actual or perceived characteristics. Why is there anti-Americanism?--Because of American policies toward other nations and people! They were not only hated foreigners. Under-developed in war, weapons, brutality, cruelty, selfishness, and the desire to dominate others! Actually they were over-developed in some of the world's most beautiful and peaceful cultures-- religions, art, sciences, philosophies, and beautiful, peaceful, pastoral ways of life, which the White came to destroy, and to makes slaves of them. Ted Rudow III, MA